From Under the Cork Tree
by Canadino
Summary: A story about endings and beginnings. Companion piece to My Tongue Will Always Be The B-Side to My Heart.
1. Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name

**Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the story idea and only some of the witty remarks. I own so little; so please don't steal.**

Background music: -

[=]

"Kise-kun, I'm going to break up with Kagami."

A plane full of restless individuals on route to Altai, Mongolia were currently five minutes behind schedule on account of their absent pilot, and were going to be five more minutes later had Kise actually tripped over the five-year-old in his path in his surprise, clutching a sleek, silver cell phone to his ear. "No, don't do that," he said, giving no indication he had almost trampled a toddler, nodding in apology and pulling his suitcase along. "Don't do that, don't do that."

"Why not? I think I need to; I think it's time."

"No," Kise whined, shirt wrinkled, tie askew, hair a mess. Frantic, rushing people were background noise at the Tokyo airport, but he was spared a look because he was particularly flustered and dressed in his pilot uniform - and damn good-looking to boot, but he had bigger fish to fry at the moment - and - "Why would you think this is the only choice? How did he make you mad this time?"

"Nothing. It's just a feeling." Though, really, Kise had never once thought it had been a result of anything Kagami had done; certainly Kuroko may have threatened Kagami himself with such an ultimatum before but never would he have called Kise about it if it had not been a big deal. "I'm planning on calling him later to meet with me and then we'll break it off."

"Don't do that," Kise parroted. He heard Kuroko sigh audibly, a clear indication he was grating on a last nerve. "Listen, listen, hasn't he been good to you? I know I've said a lot of things but you know, I'm just giving Kagami_cchi_ a hard time, but he's such a good boyfriend to you, this is a hasty decision..."

"I've already prepared myself, Kise-_kun_, and I don't need you to try to talk me out of it."

"It's what friends and roommates are for, right?" Kise cried, giving a winning smile that made him look slightly maniacal as he rounded and nearly skidded past the gate. The gate attendant was looking at her wristwatch pointedly. He grinned at her even wider and tried to enter the gate but she thrust her arm out, miming a phone with her other hand. "Listen, Kuroko_cchi_, I really can't talk right now, I'm, I mean, I've got to board my flight, I'm late, but don't do anything rash before talking it over with me! Okay?"

"Have a safe flight, Kise-_kun_," Kuroko said in a monotone before hanging up.

"I'm sorry," Kise said to the gate attendant.

"You have more than just me to apologize to," she said, looking displeased. "Get on board, captain."

[=]

The clock whispered twelve-eighteen in the morning when Kise unlocked his apartment with the gentlest of clicks and attempted to teleport soundlessly into the foyer but the light in the kitchen was on and Kuroko was sitting at the table on his computer, looking no different than he did when Kise left two weeks ago.

"I didn't know you'd still be awake," Kise said, turning on the the light at the door and gracefully unlacing his shoes one at a time. The clattering of Kuroko's keyboard was drowned out by the rumble of his suitcase's wheels down the hall toward the kitchen and the rest of the apartment.

"I had a lot on my mind," Kuroko said, a pair of slick tortoiseshell glasses balanced artfully on the bridge of his nose. He rarely brought out his reading glasses unless he was thinking too hard to focus on the material he was reading. Kise had struggled to get him to buy something more quirky but Kuroko had scowled at that. "I'm planning a field trip for my class in two weeks and there's just some logistics I have to pound out, and I also need to write up a permission form." He sighed and squeezed the space between his eyebrows. "Parents are very protective of their little ones."

"I'm sure you had a lot on your mind."

Kuroko gave him a disinterested look.

"I saw your relationship change on Facebook!" Kuroko turned back to his computer. "I thought you said you would wait until we talked about it." He was talking to a wall; Kuroko merely sniffed and Kise decided to switch tactics. "How did he take it?"

It seemed that Kuroko was not willing to give him his satisfaction, but just as Kise resigned himself to living the rest of his life without such information and began making himself some tea for bed: "He resisted at first, as I expected, but once I laid out my reasoning and logic, he agreed. It was a peaceful breakup."

"What was your reasoning?" Kise asked as he poured generous heaps of jasmine white tea leaves into the two mugs. Kuroko always hated it when he made tea because he preferred a watered-down, gentler taste but Kise figured he was justified in making the tea stronger. Kuroko did not touch the steaming mug Kise placed before him.

"Sometimes people can break up without making it dramatic," Kuroko said finally, finishing his typing with an anticlimactic stroke. He looked up at Kise with unaffected eyes. "It doesn't have to be tears and hurt feelings."

Kise took a sip and burned his tongue before putting his mug down and crossing over to envelope Kuroko in a suffocating hug. "I missed you in Russia, Kuroko_cchi_."

"I would ask you about Russia, but you have a tendency to talk into morning and you should get some sleep."

"Are things okay with him?"

If possible, Kuroko became even more rigid in his arms. "Why do you keep talking about Kagami? Our breakup has nothing to do with you and your friendship with him was not dependant on our relationship. I already told you we broke off fairly cleanly."

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry."

"Go to bed. You've been flying for hours." He dodged the kiss Kise attempted to place on his cheek and watched as the blonde gathered his things from the foyer and set off to his room. "The apartment was quieter without you."

"Oh, I'm so touched!"

[=]

It had barely crossed Kise's mind to wrestle details about the momentous breakup from the ex that he was surprised when Kagami called him three days later when he was picking up a few things from the grocery store to stock up the fridge. He had almost forgotten when he answered and Kagami said, "How's Kuroko?"

"That's cruel of you, Kagami_cchi_. I'm gone for weeks and the first thing out of your mouth isn't asking me how I am."

"Oh. Sorry. I mean, how was Russia?"

"But I understand, I guess. If I had been dating someone for three years, I guess I'd ask about them too, in your circumstance." He balanced the phone on his shoulder as he checked the expiration date for the milk. Kagami hesitated on the line.

"I was just wondering, that's all," he said, sounding ashamed even through the phone.

"He's alright. You know Kuroko_cchi_; he doesn't say anything even if he isn't."

There was another pause. "He hasn't said anything about me?"

"Hmm," Kise said, deliberately. He put the milk back and chose another carton. "Russia was nice. The girls there are very pretty."

"Can we," Kagami asked, "have lunch together? Today? Or soon?"

"Not today," Kise said. "But I can on Thursday, if you're free. And you're not allowed to talk about Kuroko for more than half the time."

"Thursday at noon. I can't promise, but I'll try."

[=]

Note: the beginning of the esteemed long fic...sos help


	2. Dance, Dance

Aomine Daiki was routinely one of the worst students in class, but he liked to believe that he made up for his apparent lack of intellect with a fierce overload of justice. Certainly, things weren't always black and white, but if someone had been tricked, they ought to have the thing swindled from them returned. If someone had been harmed, their harmers ought to be responsible. Momoi had always shook her head in school and told him he was a special brand of Randian hero, to which he never understood. "Stay pure, Dai-chan," she wished.

He supposed it was a little fairy tale-esque that he chose to enter law enforcement, but at the same time he also supposed if he were really to pursue childish dreams, he'd enter the headquarters of the Japanese Police Forces and persecute hardened criminals, but he was happy patrolling local neighborhoods and working police boxes. There was just something so incredibly daunting about being a hard-knuckled officer that didn't sit well with him - and anyway, someone had to be the one to help people live out their lives and that pleasant business.

"You'll need someone to watch over you," Momoi decided, so she joined the force with him.

Aomine never understood Momoi's choice to follow him - once he fancied she fancied him but both agreed such a notion was almost too off putting to consider. She was a woman of money, born to a father who owned a big, successful business, and even her friendship with such a simpleton as him - who thought bread for lunch was ideal and bicycling was the greatest way to travel - amazed him sometimes. Obviously she excelled in her field over him, working hard to be promoted to sergeant of their little station, but still she refused a position with the national police force. It boggled Aomine, and quietly he was happy she wanted to be around him. He was glad that she went to his middle school and he was glad she possessed a commendable chest which was how he broke the ice. She slapped him.

Still - Momoi insisted on patrolling in pairs, which gave her an excuse to follow Aomine around the neighborhood and chat with him about her life and her father and her apartment in the city, thirty minutes away from the police box by car and forty minutes away from Aomine's tiny house. So he learned that she was to be engaged - or at least, destined to marry.

"Who is the man?"

"His name is Akashi Seijuro. His family owns..."

"...Akashi Corporations? That's pretty huge. I think that company has made at least half the appliances in my house."

"Yep," Momoi agreed, nodding. She had her long hair up and pinned to a neat bun, peeking girlishly from behind her officer's cap. She was so respectable and quite a woman. She was his best friend. "My father wants this because it's beneficial for the family. Our marriage is a symbol of an alliance between the companies, stronger than anything just on paper, and would pool our resources in the interest of the people and the economy." Sometimes she was talking way over his head.

"Is that okay," Aomine asked. "Such a thing like...getting married. Is it okay to go that far?"

Momoi beamed. "It's fine. As a cop, I'm not rolling in the men anyway. And didn't you know, Dai-chan, that everyone with money and a spouse also have secret lovers? Not saying that's what's going to happen, but you know, it could." She laughed, though Aomine didn't find it funny. "My family was very surprised when I chose this life instead of being a businesswoman so I guess this is my way of appeasing them."

There were a lot of things wrong with this situation, but Aomine could not place his finger on just one. "I hope he's a nice guy," he settled with, grumbling and unenthusiastic.

"He's very nice," Momoi insisted.

Before them a few feet away was the very thing Aomine loved about being an officer. A teenager, probably in his early teens fresh out of adolescence, was pestering one of the elderly women in the neighborhood. Of course, it wasn't youth harassment that meant so much to Aomine - but the fact that he could do something about it. In the city, he'd be dealing with insolent punks who needed more than a stern scolding once in a while, or with adults that did not think they needed guidance; but here, he could solve problems, make a real difference in the community. And perhaps from here, he could change the world. It was a simple ideal, but it motivated him nonetheless. "Excuse me, is there a problem?" he called, striding up to the two.

The youth took a step back and made up a flimsy excuse about fundraising when Momoi finally fell in step with Aomine. "I'm certain your father or mother would be more than happy to discuss your fundraising activities with us! It isn't everyday that someone as young as you participates to improve society!"

The boy flushed and his guilt-ridden face was enough. "Run along," Aomine dismissed. "Don't bother your elders; there are so many more worthwhile things to do and you don't look like a bad kid." The boy gave them a grateful look and scampered off.

"That should hold him off for a few weeks," Momoi chirped. "Good work, Dai-chan! You make a great bad cop."

"Thank you," the old woman says, bowing to Aomine, then to Momoi. "Both of you. You two make a fabulous team, you and your girlfriend."

"I'm not his girlfriend," Momoi laughed. "I'm engaged to someone else, practically!"

"We're practically family," Aomine agreed, the uncomfortable feeling returning whenever he thought of Momoi getting married, having a family, and he would be the stupid little brother at home waiting for his turn.

"Oh! My apologies." The woman beamed at them, infected by Momoi's good nature. "Indeed, you two seem extremely close, like siblings." She seemed to hesitate, then pushed on with a shamelessness that Aomine did not expect of someone probably born during the Meiji Period. "I have a daughter, very pretty. If you are single, at the moment..."

"You ought to have gotten her information!" Momoi insisted after they had bid the old woman farewell and continued on their patrol. "God knows how long it's been since your last relationship, Dai-chan. Even I have to be worried for you, a young man like you who isn't even looking for someone to spend some time with alone!"

"I'm not interested," Aomine sniffed. "I've got no time for a relationship." In between his shifts and playing basketball afterwards and going out for drinks with his colleagues, he was in the peak time of his youth. The few girls he'd dated in high school, he remembered being tired - kissing was nice, and having a beautiful girl at his side was pleasant, but it was all so temporary. He supposed he might not need to enter a relationship to find a nice person to be with in bed, but sex friends left a bad taste in his mouth. His parents had written themselves into his psyche well and he had vowed for their sake that he'd treat whomever he was to be in a relationship with the best he could. He liked security and a sense of stability.

"Sure," Momoi sighed. "I suppose your little friendly talks with the girls you meet at the bars are just you being social."

"There's a difference," Aomine insisted. "I mean nothing by it, and they don't mean anything by it either, and I never bring any of them home."

"Rarely, that's true. You really ought to settle down, then, Dai-chan! You seem like a perfect married man."

"Are you really going to get married? Like, you're really going to go through with it?"

"Yes! Why do you sound so surprised all the time? Do I not seem like the type?"

[=]

There had been a new face at the basketball courts just around the corner from the firehouse that Aomine liked to frequent around eight at night when all the teenagers bored with the afternoon finally left to go home or wander the streets. He had been the only one for a long time, and he liked it that way, mostly. Occasionally he asked a coworker to come along for a one-on-one, but sometimes he liked to be by himself, dribbling and shooting layups against invisible enemies. He could play against himself. One night, he found someone else, ducking like a madman and throwing around basketball talent like he didn't have a care in the world.

"Let's play," Aomine had said, by way of introducing himself. They played until a standstill and Aomine was feeling hungry, so he proposed they continue later and went off for a late dinner with the feeling of impressed exhilaration at such a rival.

It wasn't until several long, sweaty nights later that Aomine learned the name of his new basketball acquaintance, a firefighter at the fire station around the corner. "Kagami Taiga," Kagami said, bringing his hand out for the first handshake between them. "Pleased t' meet you!"

With the exchange of names and numbers, as Kagami was not always at the basketball courts when Aomine was, they had dinner once and went out for drinks three times, and Aomine was around when Kagami mumbled awkwardly after a particularly rousing game how he ought to go about tactfully asking someone out. For a moment, Aomine was a little shellshocked, remembering all the terrible romance novels Momoi had read excerpts to him during middle school; but Kagami confessed, very quietly and almost endearingly youthful, to falling in love with someone he'd met when a local kindergarten took its class to the fire station as a field trip. He was tripping over his words, almost as nervous as if he were in front of the person himself, that Aomine felt sorry for him and resisted teasing him. Though, as a police officer, he had to confirm -

"No, it was not a child!" Kagami protested, so alarmed all the fear had drained out of his face momentarily. "It was one of the teachers. I can't believe you'd think I'd go for a kid!"

It has been quite an event in Aomine's life, so much that Momoi had suspected that Aomine had found a woman for himself when he answered a phone to talk to a frantic Kagami who was calling him from a restaurant's restroom, demanding how he ought to go on now that he'd accidentally blurted out his feelings over dessert. Aomine had promised to take him out to get smashingly drunk in the event of a refusal, and when Kagami did not call back later that night to take him up on that offer, he smiled to himself.

It had been a while since he'd finally met Kagami's paramour, an unsuspecting-looking older man who preferred to sit on the sidelines of the court to smoke a cigarette and looked at Kagami with something warm in his eyes when Kagami wasn't looking, and even he was feeling something wasn't right when Kagami opted not to go for a dunk despite given the opening. "What's wrong with you?" Aomine shot, when Kagami scuttled off to get the ball after it bounced pathetically against the backboard. "You're not like yourself lately. What the hell happened?"

"Nothing," Kagami huffed, scowling, and they went up against each other again, and after Aomine easily stole the ball from his hands and went for an easy charge, he said, "Kuroko broke up with me."

"What? Why?"

Kagami shrugged, wiping himself with his shirt. "He called me out one afternoon after his class was out and told me we were done. I don't even remember saying anything wrong or doing anything wrong; he kissed me the time before that."

"Why did he say you were done?"

"I don't know. He told me he was tired of us and that he was older and I shouldn't be limiting myself anyway, so we should split up. I told him I didn't mind and I liked him all the same but he said our schedules conflict anyway and I guess it was true that we weren't spending as much time together as we used to, but - is it just me? Or is it weird to you too?"

Aomine dribbled thoughtfully. "He's not that older than you."

"Yeah, right." Kagami sighed. "I thought maybe he was insecure that there was an age gap between us but he said he wasn't and he never once doubted my fidelity to him. So I have nothing left to go on beside..." He hesitated. "...maybe the idea that he doesn't feel the same way anymore."

"Maybe something happened, that you don't know about."

Kagami was distracted. "Maybe. But he won't meet with me when I just want to talk to him, so I don't know what else to do." He was still very much in love with Kuroko, that much was clear. Aomine did not know what to do, as a casual basketball friend. He guessed Momoi might know, and she knew Kuroko almost as well as he did, but he wasn't sure if Kagami wanted the world to know of this.

"Maybe you should give him space," Aomine offered weakly, hating the theoreticals in his mouth. Kagami did not seem to hold this against him, giving him a shining smile.

"Don't worry about it," Kagami laughed. "It's my problem. I didn't mean to unload on you. I mean, I already complained about it to his roommate and I guess if I can't get through to him at that level, I should maybe reconsider."

"Wait," Aomine rushed. "If you wanted to talk to him, maybe I could - ask him to come see me and you could just...happen to show up. Could that work?"

Kagami raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that kind of sneaky?"

"You want to talk to him and he's resisting. Anyway, if Tetsu really doesn't want to stay, he'd leave no matter what we'd do, right?" He wondered if he ought to have reconsidered his nickname for Kuroko; he'd used it once during an argument with Kagami about the best professional basketball team and Kuroko had sided with him - though he doubted Kuroko had wanted to rile Kagami up to kiss him quietly afterwards - and it had stuck. But Kagami did not seem fazed. "Maybe we can even bring the roommate, to make it less obvious and weird."

"That sounds like we're ganging up on him."

"No. I'll take the roommate and graciously take my leave and you two can duke it out." Aomine shrugged. "It's your call, though."

"I..." Kagami was a good guy. He was a little simple-minded and a lot gullible, but Aomine thought he was alright. "I'll give Kise a call."

[=]

Note: yerp


	3. Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner

Kagami summoning him to the basketball court was unusual in itself, as Kise himself played basketball relatively sparsely and without Kuroko, he did not share too terribly much with Kagami in the first place. Still; his Saturday was free so he obviously rolled out of bed two hours behind schedule. Kuroko had already left for brunch with someone named Aomine, someone Kise had always heard of but had never met. He was apparently Kagami's closest friend and Kuroko had been taken to meet him when Kise was flying a layover in Turkey. Kuroko had few words to spare on Aomine, as he had few words to spare on anyone in particular, but they had been good words.

_did you know about this_, Kuroko texted him as he left the convenience store, fifteen minutes after Kagami's intended meeting time bearing sports drinks and some snacks for himself.

_know about what?_ Kise texted back, but Kuroko did not answer and Kise was left to wonder on his way to the basketball court. He immediately understood when he finally reached the door of the chain fence circling the courts - Kuroko was sitting alone on a bench watching Kagami play basketball with someone Kise had never seen before.

"Hello," Kise greeted, painting on his most sparkling smile, the one that crossed from one ear to another. Kuroko offered him a single nod, his face dark, and shook out a cigarette from a pack. Kagami glanced at Kuroko for a split second before greeting Kise back. "You never told me it was like this," he murmured, handing Kagami his wares. Kagami pretended that he hadn't heard and beckoned the stranger over.

"This is my friend, Aomine," Kagami said, grinning.

"Nice," Aomine said, a bit of a grunt without finishing his sentence. "Aomine Daiki." He extended his hand, calloused and a little sweaty and Kise took it and felt shivers run through his arm, the feeling he got whenever he saw someone he wished to take home.

"Kise," Kise faltered. "Ryouta."

"I've heard about you. You're the pilot pretty boy, right?"

They had spoken about him. He had known about him even before they'd met. He was being so middle school right now, falling for someone he barely even knew. "Those are all true facts," he huffed, tossing his head to try and shake the butterflies from his stomach. He was an adult. Such things like love at first sight was for innocent, wide-eyed students.

Aomine laughed. "You're kind of arrogant but you're alright," he said. Kise pressed his lips together in something of a weak smile.

Kagami was looking at them strangely, and Kise did not really understand until Aomine spoke up again. "Well, I'm really sweaty and gross right now; I'll go get us some Pocari."

"Wait," Kise began. "I just…"

"Come with me, pretty boy," Aomine beckoned, and Kise found himself following faithfully like a puppy. What was happening to him? This was ridiculous. He glanced back and Kagami was staring down at the bag of sports drinks. Kuroko was smoking and had already retreated somewhere inside his mind. He lingered for a moment and Aomine called him and he found himself picking up his feet and following a man he'd only known for less than five minutes out of the court.

"Wait," Kise said, and Aomine continued striding away without a moment of hesitance. "Leaving them like that...you know about them, right? You've got to. They've...separated, it isn't good to do that, is it?"

Aomine turned to him, and for a moment Kise was certain he'd open his mouth berate him for being so dense and getting in the way - "I'm sorry," Aomine said instead, scratching at his cheek almost sheepishly. "I guess we should have told you how it was going to go down. I hadn't expected us to take our leave so soon."

"We were buffers," Kise realized. "Accessories to the crime."

Aomine grinned, and Kise thought about how Aomine was not traditionally very good-looking - he had a rough-looking face and a standoffish air to him, a bit of a lopsided nose and sneering lips and slightly big ears - but he looked so good smiling and Kise found himself hopelessly entangled in - something. "Did you know I'm a cop?"

It wasn't anything that unusual, but Kise felt himself light up in surprise and Aomine laughed again. "That face makes it look like you've done something wrong."

"I haven't!"

Aomine had a smile that was infectious, and Kise thought he may have misinterpreted; Aomine was not the intimidating guy he'd first thought, and that only made him suddenly more interested in getting in his good graces. "I'm just trying to help a buddy out. Kagami looked like he really needed to say some things and I thought this would be healthy, if they get back together or not. Sometimes you have to say things, you can't just bottle them up, you know."

"Right," Kise said breathlessly.

"Do you know? Why they broke up, I mean?"

Kise shook his head. He knew this feeling. He was starstruck. And for what? A boy he knew nothing about beside he played basketball and knew Kagami and was a police officer and was simple-minded according to Kuroko. Perhaps he was sexually frustrated. When had been the last time he had slept with someone? But it was still a foreign thought to him - the idea of sleeping with Aomine Daiki. He couldn't even wrap his mind around it. This was so irrational. The way Aomine was looking at him indicated he was supposed to chime in with his thoughts.

"Kuroko_cchi_'s been really quiet about the whole thing," Kise offered. "He's quiet about a lot of things, though."

Aomine made a face that mostly summed up Kise's thoughts on the matter. "Did you know him well?" he asked. "Kuroko_cchi_, I mean."

"What's with that nickname?"

"It's just a thing I do. With people I'm familiar with."

"So what am I?"

"You're," Kise says, "Aomine."

"So I've got to earn it," Aomine concluded, still grinning, and Kise quietly promised that Aomine could have anything he wanted. "I'm not too terribly close to Tetsu. Not as much as you would be, I'd imagine. As a roommate, after all. I've only really spoken to him once or twice, and usually with Kagami. He seems like a cool guy, though. Even if he broke things off without any warning."

"Well, there was," Kise hesitated, and Aomine stopped to look at him. They weren't heading to the convenience store. Kise didn't know where they were going. He felt the pang of guilt again. "He called me a week before he broke up with Kagami...I was on a flight to Mongolia...and he told me he was going to do it. I tried to stop him."

"Don't beat yourself up about it. There wasn't anything you could do if Tetsu'd already decided on it. Kagami always said he had a weird way of getting his way."

"That's because it was Kagami." Aomine laughed at this and Kise had decided he wanted Aomine to at least think of him fondly like that once. "Where are we going right now? Now that we've politely stepped out, as it were."

Aomine considered him. "I guess you could leave, since our purpose was only to mask Kagami," he suggested, and he allowed a moment for Kise to have a minor internal panic attack at Aomine offhandedly telling him to shove off, "but that's only if you want to. I mean, it would be awkward for you to be gone when we go back, wouldn't that make things more transparent than they already are? I kind of want to get ice cream, but whatever you want to do. I mean, we're in this together, sort of."

"We could get ice cream," Kise agreed, wonderous at how the whole set-up seemed so youthful and high school when he was already in his late twenties and this was his idea of wooing and being wooed. "Except...maybe I won't, I'm not too fond of excessively sugary ice."

"Of course, model-san, we wouldn't want you to gain any weight," Aomine mocked, though devoid of real venom, and he reached over and pinched Kise's waist. "You're pretty fit. You can handle it. It's on me." Kise tried to quash the thought that he'd probably eat anything Aomine wanted him to at this point.

"Yeah, sure," Kise said. "Okay."

[=]

"So," Kagami began, cautious and nervous as he balanced his weight to equalize the bag of sports drinks in his right hand. "It seems like they went to go get drinks or whatever. Weird, right?"

"I didn't think you capable of sneak attacks like this," Kuroko said, blowing out a mouthful of white smoke. "It was my mistake for taking you lightly."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't."

He had planned an elaborate monologue and a list of things he had wanted to ask, but looking at Kuroko's figure sitting on the bench, matter-of-factly smoking a cigarette with doleful eyes, was throwing his plan to the ground and he was scrambling to pick up the pieces. Once, Kuroko had held his head in bed and told him how damn honest he was. He wasn't yet old enough to tell if that was good or bad.

"Listen," Kagami said, hesitantly. "Listen, Kuroko…"

"I don't want to hear it," Kuroko insisted. "Honestly. You know how I feel about it."

"Yeah, but I don't understand it. Did I do something wrong?"

"No," Kuroko sighed. "No, no, no." He took another drag of his cigarette, almost regretfully, and Kagami remembered the times he'd always complained after kissing Kuroko after a smoke break. "You're good. You're perfect. That's your problem."

"I don't understand that either."

"That's okay." Kagami put the bag of drinks down on the ground. If anything, he'd learned Kuroko was something akin to a nervous rabbit or a whiff of smoke and any sudden movements made him bolt, literally or figuratively into the recesses of his mind. He walked up to Kuroko, slowly, and Kuroko let him. He knelt, Kuroko's knees bumping into his chest, and his arms were long enough reach beyond the span of Kuroko's thighs for his hands to rub circles around Kuroko's shoulders.

"Get up," Kuroko whispered, frowning slightly, his cigarette dangling near Kagami's left bicep. "Get up, you look pathetic."

"I am pathetic," Kagami agreed, and he brought a hand up to Kuroko's chin. There was a small patch of stubble he'd missed. He was still not resisting. Kagami steeled himself for impact and leaned forward, pressing against Kuroko's knees, and kissed him gently on the mouth. He'd had his eyes closed, in the way he'd been brought up to believe, but he could feel Kuroko's gaze upon him and Kuroko strangely liked kissing with his eyes open in the first place. It was slight and chaste and lovesick.

"Don't do that," Kuroko murmured. "Don't do that anymore, please, Kagami-kun."

"Sorry," Kagami breathed. "You'll have to stop me first." And he kissed him again, a little more longingly, and Kuroko pressed the flickering ember of his cigarette into Kagami's arm.

"Look how easy it was to stop you," Kuroko huffed, when Kagami jolted back in surprise and discomfort. He put out the cigarette on the bench, singing the plastic slightly. Kagami rocked back onto the soles of his feet. "I don't think you'll change my mind. Please stop bringing up the subject."

"Do you want me to? Change your mind."

Kuroko leaned off the bench and pulled the bag of drinks toward him, rummaging around until he found a Pocari and threw it at Kagami. "Wipe yourself off. Get hydrated again. It wouldn't be good for a fireman to get out of the game because he was being stupid after playing basketball."

Kagami caught the Pocari. "Thanks," he said. "For worrying about me."

"I'm a teacher," Kuroko shrugged, taking a drink for himself. "It's my duty to worry about kids."

Aomine thundered back into the court, clearly believing things had been reverted back to their flawless, factory settings. "Sorry for taking so long," he grinned, thrusting a case of Pocari at them. "There was a huge line at the store." He blinked and registered the looks on Kuroko and Kagami's faces; while they were sitting close to each other, Kuroko's icy, distant look had not thawed and Kagami was looking a little more forlorn. "Didn't you guys talk or what?" he demanded, momentarily forgetting it was supposed to be a secret plan. He waved his soda-flavored popsicle in the air.

"Is everything alright?" Kise chirped, appearing behind him.

"That's unusual," Kuroko spoke up, staring pointedly at the ice cream in Kise's hands. "You hate that kind of sugary ice cream. Why did you get it?"

"You should have told me," Aomine insisted, turning incredulously, like it had not occurred to him that other people did not like gari-gari like he did. "I wouldn't have made you; I thought you just didn't want to."

"Eh," Kise sputtered. "Well, it wouldn't do to go against the crowd, it's like what they say about Rome, right?"

"What do they say?" Aomine asked with interest.

"I see the day was not a complete failure," Kuroko mused as they got on the bus to head back to their apartment. Kise fidgeted. Kuroko had watched him closely the entire time they were with Kagami and Aomine and he was pretty sure Kuroko's ability to read the atmosphere well had activated. "For you, at least."

"It's not like that," Kise protested. "Aomine's merely an interesting person, that's it."

"I see. Enough to eat convenience store ice cream and play basketball in your nice clothes with?"

"Don't bully me, Kurokocchi. Isn't it the same for you? What about you and Kagami?"

Kuroko's lips flew back together and all hints of a smirk disappeared. "Well played, Kise-kun. I'll leave you to your little budding romance then."


End file.
